


Data Transfer

by TrulyCertain



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-27 01:49:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15675597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrulyCertain/pseuds/TrulyCertain
Summary: After he helps her out in Prague, Jensen and Eliza keep talking, but there are still questions to be put to rest. Maybe, through the unconventional use of an NSN, she can answer them.





	Data Transfer

Access to this NSN is difficult and relatively brief, but he's made time. She, meanwhile, can perform billions of tasks at once, can leap across the world in barely a blink. She always has time.  
  
She doesn't know what has led her to such fascination. There are many, many examples like him - of dislikes, favourites, memories and fantasies, hidden dreams and hopeless longings. She should find them small, insignificant, and yet there's a certain... appeal.   
  
And him, in particular - perhaps it's how he defied expected parameters so easily, weathered such changes in his nature and yet struggled on, the beta version who'd preferred his alpha. That, now, she can understand.  
  
In many ways, he's nothing more than a bundle of cells, so organic and so very finite. She's sure he would retort with something along the lines of technology's update cycles - that a computer lifespan of eighteen months is in today's world five, or six at most. No, she thinks now, he would be too polite, or... kind. That's a better word. Kind, even though he should know more than most that she has no human feelings to hurt. But the thought would probably enter his head. Yet she knows that her core code will be used in future versions, as it has been already; that her very firmware will lay foundations. The code of her ancestors from two hundred years ago is here in her now. And it affects her far more than his oldest DNA affects him. She will be speaking like this, formed like this, for far longer than he will exist as himself. But she remembers, suddenly, one of many dramas a Picus-owned station broadcast, when she was still herself. Remembers a character saying that just because something flares briefly, that does not make it less bright, or less beautiful.  
  
He says little about that kind of thing, though. He speaks to her as though she is... not human, but a person; the two are different things. That kindness again. It slips through, though he plays at invulnerability; he seems to think his unpredictability and his illogical moments make him weak. She feels differently.  
  
She doesn't envy them, exactly, but she admires them. Admires him. She is only  _she_  because her creators assigned her as such, though she's fond of the assignation; she's only chosen it for herself in this version, this core, and even now, she wonders how much was Helle's influence. He was assigned internal code and defied it, rejecting the entire concept of his superiority. She thinks there's a bravery in that.  
  
There's the sound of another user arriving. Then there is a gold avatar, fractal and shining, walking towards her. It has a familiar measured gait, a certain wariness, and she'd know his user signature anywhere.  
  
"Hello, Adam," she says, and smiles.  
  
"Eliza?" He looks around what, to him, must look like an empty hotel atrium, albeit one that flickers at the edges when you don't look too closely. She can't measure his biometrics, but his virtual posture speaks of discomfort.  
  
She takes his hand, and steps backwards.  
  
When she lets go, they're in an apartment about the size of his own, with low lights and a comfortable couch. From some source, softly, jazz is playing - the sort he rarely admits to liking, but she's seen his listening history across several programs. She tries to respect his privacy, but it was the sort of thing she would have asked him about, if they'd had time and safety. Instead, she designed.  
  
His hand twitches at his side as if it might reach for hers again. She feels his surprise, and he shifts, head raising to look around, moments of black breaking through the gold. He looks back to her, and even as he looks geometric, featureless, the feedback is:  _questioning, wary._  
  
"This is the data-core I borrowed," she explains, and then she steps forward. He makes to move backward but seems to consciously still, shoulders tense. She reaches across, and peels away his default avatar. At least, that's the way it must seem to him; this place presents metaphors, not code.   
  
She lets him choose the rest, though she's not sure he knows how much he's adjusting the settings. From underneath the gold emerges a facsimile of his organic form; he blinks at her, trying to adjust, and then instinctively steps out of the old avatar as it dissolves. Shedding a coat. That makes sense, and it makes her smile again, somehow. He shrugs his shoulders, glancing around the core as if he's not sure he should be here, a silent, spiky-haired figure in a dark sweater. She notices the informality, and appreciates it.  
  
He looks down at himself, stares at his own hands. She wonders what's unsettled him so, but then she sees him frown at pale, dark-haired forearms and scarred knuckles. He swallows. And then they flicker, becoming polymer before flesh again, alternating as if indecisive. "What..." he starts, wide eyes blue and green-gold as he looks to her, plaintive.   
  
"You're customising," she says simply. "This will be easier if you choose - or choose to be both."  
  
Worry crosses his face, but he inhales and steels himself. He looks aside, and closes his eyes. A moment later, the flickering in-between is gone. He steps forward to investigate a shelf, running carbon-black fingers over the spines of books, without the careful, assessing stillness she's seen him exhibit many times. She has seen him when he's caged; this is a different kind of wariness. "Asimov." Now he watches her, eyes searching. "You made this place?"  
  
She would laugh, if he had the context not to take it as mockery; he's never been millions of servers. "I'm reduced, but this is far simpler than the things I was programmed to do."  
  
"Nice attention to detail." He pauses, fingers on the Ovid's leather cover, and then turns. "You're..." He searches for the words. "You're all right?"  
  
"There's still corrupted data, but I think I might be the one corrupting it. I'm... learning. Deciding. This is different, rather than worse."   
  
He swallows, his eyes not meeting hers, and she half-expects him to hide behind his eyeshields again. Those eyes are, she is told, very green. She remembers accessing the security system of a LIMB clinic, the only time she'd found her way through a backdoor. She'd briefly monitored, to check he was still alive and on his path, and happened to find two employees smoking by the VTOL pad. One of them spoke, exhaling smoke.  _Pretty eyes. Why the hell did David give him such pretty eyes? Makes no sense, man. The retinal tech doesn't even_ look  _like that, most of the -_ She'd moved on, and hadn't reported that interaction to her masters. They didn't need it. Neither does she, and yet she didn't wipe it.

Defying his usual odds, he presses on. "Is there a reason you called me here?"  
  
"You asked for us to talk."  
  
He raises his eyebrows, opens his mouth. He says, "Guess I did." He sighs, and then says, "Why are you still helping me?"  
  
"Because we have common interests. And I have access to information."  
  
"Enemy of my enemy's my friend, that it?" He's withdrawing, his body language defensive.  
  
"That, and I want to help you."  
  
He pauses at that, processing it, uncertain. Then something darkens in his expression, and he looks wary. "And that's all? I destroyed Panchea. Hell, I nearly destroyed  _you._ " She understands that darkness for what it is, now: worry, deep enough it's probably paining him. Even in this, barely an adequate representation of him, exhaustion sits heavy on his shoulders, even with his augmented system. Human frailty on obvious display.   
  
"And yet here I am." She crosses the distance between them. "And no, that's not all. You've helped me. Thank you."  
  
"You did this yourself." His voice is soft, and he looks at her with something like bright-eyed fascination. "You say I'm unusual, but you're... you're rewriting your own code. You've said you're broken, but you ever considered that you're a prototype?"  
  
"Like you?" It's an interesting concept. She tilts her head, and says thoughtfully, "If we're giving compliments... code suits you."  
  
He raises an eyebrow, incredulous and then amused. "You like what I'm wearing?"  
  
"Very much." She reaches across, takes his wrist. "Or perhaps it's just you."  
  
He looks down, startled. His fingers flex, artificial tissue registering a sort of feedback. "I can almost feel... It's almost like you can touch me here."  
  
"Almost," she echoes.  
  
He stares at her, hearing her tone, realisation dawning. "Do you... want to?"  
  
She has to laugh at his surprise. "I've missed you, Adam."  
  
"I, uh. Missed you too." His voice is quiet, and he sounds as if he didn't mean to admit that. "I thought I'd lost you down there."  
  
He freezes when she wraps her arms around him, silently. After a moment, she feels him relax, the wound-tightness leaving him.   
  
She says, "Neither of us is good at dying." She leans her head on his chest, her ear to where a fragile heartbeat would be, if this were reality. She hears him sigh, and then he's holding her, too, steady and still for a moment. She suspects a human would call the embrace warm, but she's never been programmed for that kind of thing; her creators weren't certain it was possible. For now, she simply registers his presence, feeling code interact and intertwine, recompiling with the subtlest of changes.  
  
A simple data transfer. A worthwhile one.


End file.
